Idea Surfr

I analyzed 9,300+ "I wish there was an app for this" posts on Reddit. Here is the data on what people actually want.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a project to track "opportunity gaps" on Reddit—specifically posts where someone describes a pain point and asks for a tool that doesn't seem to exist.

I just finished processing a dataset of 9,363 unique opportunities from the last 6 months. I wanted to share the raw trends I found because they're pretty counter-intuitive for anyone looking to build a side project or SaaS right now.

1. The "Anti-Cloud" Trend:

About 7% of all requests (640+ posts) specifically asked for offline-first or privacy-focused tools. People are getting "subscription fatigue" and want local-only versions of popular apps (especially in productivity).

2. The Big Categories:

Productivity: 1,231 requests (The most crowded, but highest volume).

Education/Self-Improvement: 698 requests (The highest "willingness to pay" sentiment).

Business Tools/SaaS: 696 requests.

Health & Wellness: 656 requests.

3. The "ADHD" Niche:

Surprisingly, r/ADHDis one of the highest-signal subreddits. The users there provide the most detailed "feature requests" because current tools often fail their specific workflows.

4. App Type Breakdown:

Mobile Apps: 61%

SaaS/Web Platforms: 6%

Desktop/Local Software: \\\\\\\~2% (Small but very high intent).

5. Timing:

Most "frustration" posts happen on Mondays and Tuesdays. People start their work week, hit a wall with their current software, and come to Reddit to complain.

6. Where the Money Is:

The "Willingness to Pay" Index

I scanned the data for keywords like "buy," "price," "premium," and "subscription." While Productivity has the most requests, it does not have the most people offering to pay.

- Finance (193 pay signals): By far the most profitable niche. Users are asking for specialized portfolio trackers and risk analysis tools and are explicitly looking for "premium" versions that handle their data securely.

- Online Commerce (76 pay signals): Shopify owners and small e-commerce sellers are vocal about paying for tools that save them time on shipping, inventory, or order syncing.

- Travel (42 pay signals): This is a high-intent category. People are looking for "pro" travel planners or specific regional transit apps and are willing to pay for the convenience of a "working" solution.

Insight: If you want a faster path to revenue, Finance or E-commerce tools beat "General Productivity."

7. The "Pain Level" (Frustration Score):

I measured the length and detail of the posts. Longer posts generally indicate higher frustration and a deeper "pain point."

The highest frustration scores come from:

- Developer Platforms (229 avg length): Developers write long, technical "rants" about missing features in Spark, AWS, or NetSuite. If you solve these, you have a customer for life.

- Cooking & Recipes (223 avg length): Users are angry about modern recipe sites being bloated with ads and "backstories." They want ultra-minimalist, high-speed tools that just show the ingredients.

- Parenting (221 avg length): Parents are highly descriptive about their needs (tracking sleep, milestones, or school schedules). This is an emotional, high-retention niche.

Insight: Don't just look for many posts; look for long posts. A long post is a blueprint for a feature list.

8. The "Last 60 Days" Trend (What's Heating Up)

Looking at the data from November to January, we can see which categories are gaining momentum right now:

- Health & Wellness & Gaming: These both spiked in December/January. This follows the "New Year, New Me" trend. People are currently hunting for gym trackers, habit-builders, and gamified life-management tools.

- Smart Home & IoT: There is a recent wave of interest in "Data Visualization" for smart homes—people have the sensors, but they want better graphs to see how their home’s temperature/humidity changes over time.

Summary for your "Action Plan":

1. High Revenue / High Volume: Build in Finance. People are screaming for better portfolio analytics.
2. High Gratitude / Low Competition: Build for Traditional Artists (Clean-up tools) or Parents.
3. The "Current Wave": Build a Minimalist Smart Home Dashboard or a Gym Decision-Fatigue Tool.

SUMMARY

Top Niche by Pay Signal: Finance (193 signals)

Top Niche by Pain Level: Developer Platforms (High Detail)

Fastest Growing (Jan 2026): Health & Wellness (New Year Trend)

The "Anti-Bloat" Opportunity: Cooking & Recipes (Users want text-only, no ads).

I built a tool (neven. app) to help me parse all this data, but I thought these high-level stats would be useful for this sub.

Which of these categories is everyone currently building in? Happy to pull more specific stats from the data if you're curious about a niche.

Visit neven.app/blog for more insights

* Church givings - an app that allows churches to gather givings online and then you take a percentage of that. You need to get priests on your side to promote that. Good for you because Churches are exempt from taxes

* What would I do for a dollar/Would you do it for a dollar? - Fiverr like shit but more social. Imagine something like: I dare you to do this for X dollars.

* You got a dollar? - basically begging people online to send you a dollar. Just like beggars on the street

* Selling fog - literally selling fog in a jar

* iEgg - selling regular egg that has Apple logo on it for 99$

* Voting - useful system that allows people to vote online instead of going to physical place

* Messaging only with push notifications - messaging app that uses only push notifications to read and send messages. there is no other UI

* But first let me take a selfie - an app that has no buttons, you are taking selfies only by using hand gestures

* Don’t meet in person - dating app or some kind of network that you only meet people online

* Stupid people repellent - A mace or some kind of spray that has “stupid people repellent” on it

* Alien emoji - normal emojis but with double eyes like ::D ::) that is alien emoji

* App where all followers, likes are fake - that is just ran by AI

* Hangover - a place where only drunk photos are placed so you can watch them next morning

* RentACock - Renting a dick on demand, but prostitution

* Gay app with mandatory pic - because on most gay dating apps there are no pics of people

* Hate comment removal - system which removes hate comments from your social networks

* OnlyHaters - OnlyFans but for haters

* News excerpt summary - news website but it gives you summary of the news in 2-3 sentences

* Bluetooth chat - chat that works through bluetooth only, but you need to be close to people

* Social network where all is opposite. Like downvotes are good…

* Real movie spoilers + movie reaction - YT channel where you actually spoil the movie, you actually say what is going on in the movie and spoil the end

* Parfume that smells like cock or pussy - that is just urine I guess

* Picture book for adults - a picture book of cocks and pussies

* Explain like I’m 5 - chatgpt explainer that explains things in simple terms

* SatanMail - like santa mail, but these emails are from satan

* Selling funny ringtones

* Porn synchronisation - like cartoons but you sync porn clips to your language. That is content theft

* You control my life - people telling me what to do and pay for it

* Fake DJ - YT channel where you act like a DJ in some luxury home, but it’s all fake

* Stay in touch - a messenger that sends messages to people you choose every couple of weeks so you actually stay in touch

* Hard core sexting AI chat

* AirBnB hourly - Ok it probably exists already and you might be wondering, who the fuck would rent room per hour? Well people who wants to have sex but don't have place of their own. Like strangers, gays, lovers and so on

* Online girlfriend - of course it exists, but this time the focus would be on customers who for willing to pay, and then there are those anonymous girls would like to earn money

Look, I know this isn't some $50k MRR flex... but hear me out.

I see you grinding at 2 AM, convincing yourself that "one more feature" will finally get you customers. It won't.

I wasted 6 months building shit nobody asked for before I realized something - as a solo founder stuck at $0, your problem isn't your product. It's everything else. Here's exactly what changed:

1. I Stopped "Building" and Started Talking

Big mistake: I spent 5 months coding in isolation thinking "build it and they will come."

They didn't come.

Then I forced myself to do something uncomfortable - I started cold messaging 50 people on LinkedIn every single day. Not copy-paste spam. Actually personalized messages to people who engage with top posts in my niche.

Response rate: 15-20%.

These people told me what they actually wanted. 

Your obsession with coding is just avoiding rejection.

2. Fuck Your Feature List

This one hurt but... I deleted 7 features I spent weeks building.

Turned out 3% of users ever clicked on them.

Stripped everything down to ONE thing: AI content that sounds like you, not ChatGPT.

Made that 10x better instead of adding more mediocre features.

Your feature bloat is killing you. Pick one thing and make it unfairly good.

3. The Pricing Move That Felt Insane

Started at $19/month to "compete" with bigger tools at $39.

Conversion rate: 6%.

Then I did something that felt stupid - raised it to $29/month.

Conversions went UP to 11%.

Plus the customers who complained about the $10 difference:

They were going to be nightmare support tickets anyway.

Stop racing to the bottom.

Your low price isn't helping you.

4. Reddit Became My Unfair Advantage

While everyone's trying to hack the algorithm on X, I did the most unsexy thing possible...

Wrote ONE valuable post per day on Reddit.

No promo links in the post. (Just let people ask)

One post drove 50+ qualified visitors. That's more than weeks of "viral" tweets with 50k impressions ever did.

Now I repurpose that one post across 5-10 relevant subreddits.

Cost: $0. Time: 60 minutes per day.

5. SEO But Make It Actually Smart

Everyone told me: "Write about LinkedIn growth tips!"

Cool, I'd be competing with HubSpot, Neil Patel, and every marketing blog with DA 80+.

I'd never rank.

So I went bottom-of-funnel instead:

• "Brandled vs [competitor]" comparison pages
• "Best [competitor] alternatives"
• "[competitor] review"

These get 50-200 searches per month. But everyone searching is ready to buy.

And I can actually rank for them.

One comparison page drives more revenue than 10 "tips and tricks" articles ever did.

6. I Stopped Pretending to Be a Big Company

The Solo Founder's Actual Edge

You can't outspend funded competitors. You can't out-hire them. You can't out-build them.

But you can out-care them.

Every customer gets a personal response from me. Every feature request gets a Loom video (even if it's a "no"). Every cancelled user gets a real email asking what I could've done better.

Big companies can't do this. Their support team doesn't even know their founder.

You ARE the founder. That's your moat.

Why I Almost Quit (And Why You Shouldn't)

Month 3: $0. Thought about quitting. Month 4: $0. Definitely thought about quitting. Month 5: $0. Wrote my "I'm shutting down" post. Month 6: Changed everything. Hit $126 in 4 days.

Here's what nobody tells you: most founders quit right before things work.

Not because their idea was bad. Because they ran out of patience.

The difference between $0 and $126 isn't talent. It's just refusing to quit when everything feels pointless.

The Truth About "Making It"

I'm not at $20k MRR. I'm not at $10k. I'm at $126.

But you know what? I went from "this will never work" to "holy shit, people are actually paying me."

That mental shift is worth more than the money.

Because now I know the model works. Now it's just about repetition.

Keep doing outreach. Keep writing content. Keep talking to users. Keep shipping.

$126 becomes $500. $500 becomes $2k. $2k becomes $10k.

But only if you don't quit at $0.

Look, I'm not some guru. I'm just a solo founder who wasted 6 months doing everything wrong.

But if you're stuck at $0 like I was, maybe my mistakes can save you some time.

Happy to answer questions or share more details.

(And yeah, the tool is Brandled - helps founders grow on LinkedIn & X without sounding like ChatGPT. But more importantly: just keep building. Most people quit right before it works.)